California Indian Nations College Celebrates Year One

Tribal Tutelage: The California Indian Nations College Celebrates a Year of Offering Classes—but the School Has a Lot More Work to Do (Brian Blueskye, Coachella Valley Independent, May 23 2019)

California Indian Nations College

 

I live in California and I'd never heard of it. It doesn't seem to offer any degrees or even any classes of its own. (So accreditation wouldn't seem to be a concern.) It appears to serve as a remote site for a local community college (College of the Desert), offering individual classes from that college along with GED prep classes. Last (spring) semester it only offered two college classes, an English class and a Life Planning class.

If it really wants to amount to anything besides a feel-good moment for all the self-righteous ones, it needs to offer actual programs that will be of use to its intended audience. Perhaps some vocational subjects, a college transfer program for those intending to get bachelors degrees elsewhere, and maybe some specialized classes in the histories, traditions and languages of the local tribes. (The sort of things that their students can't find elsewhere, need to be preserved and deserve scholarly attention.) A longer term goal might be for UCR or CSUSB to offer remote site degree programs in association with CINC in those tribal specific subjects.

 

If they want to have a look at well-run Native American-oriented schools and see how it's done, they could maybe look at Diné College, Tsaile AZ or Navajo Technical University, Crownpoint NM. They might get some very good ideas.

https://www.dinecollege.edu/
http://www.navajotech.edu/